A Glibertarians Exclusive: Mystical Child Part XIII
Carson City, 1924
From the diary of Robert “Cairo Bob” Allen, 1841-1928
May 5, 1924 –Clear Creek Valley, Nevada
Haven’t written anything in this here diary since the day I got home in December of 1886, as I read it here, but today I reckoned it time to do so. Isis passed away yesterday. A year and a day short of our fortieth anniversary. She was eighty-one, and with me eighty-four this year, don’t reckon I’ll be long after her. Our son Robert is here – no “Bob” for him, him having gone to West Point and all, even going to France with Blackjack Pershing in the Great War. Yankee army these days wears brown, not blue, so that’s something. Robert lives up in Elko now, reading law, with his wife Betty and their five kids. All of them here today, come down from Elko in Robert’s new motorcar. Isis sure did get a kick out of the grandkids. Wish she could have seen all of them growed up. Wish I could, too, but don’t reckon that I’ll last that long. I ain’t sad about that. It will be good, to be with Isis again, to see her smile, one more time.
***
May 5, 1924
“You doing all right, Dad?” Robert Edward Allen asked his father. Not Pa, like I would have said, Bob mused. Dad. Times change.
Bob shifted in his chair. He could see out the window of the screen porch he had built twenty-some years before, to where a line of willows marked the progress of Clear Creek. “I’m all right,” he said. “As good as can be, with your Ma gone.” In the house’s tiny parlor, which had once been the main room when the house was just a cabin, stood a coffin, with the mortal remains of Bob’s wife inside. The funeral was to be the next day.
“Your Ma asked to be buried under the big willow out back, you know,” Bob said to his son.
“I know, Dad. It’s all arranged.”
“Time comes, you’ll put me right there with her, won’t you?”
“I will, Dad. That’s a promise. You and Mom were together long enough in life, figure you’d want to spend eternity together as well.”
“I reckon so,” Bob whispered.
Robert sat down in the chair opposite his father. “I still remember when this house wasn’t much more than a cabin. I remember being about ten years old, and you had me fetching wood, nails and shingles to help build the bedrooms on to the south and this screen porch here, just a couple of years later.”
“Was just a cabin, when I first come to be here,” Bob said. “Just a cabin. Cabin, couple of horses, some pigs and chickens, and a truck garden. Not much, but enough. Those were some fine days.”
“You’ve been here a long time,” Robert said.
“Long time,” Bob agreed. “Of course, I wasn’t here the whole time.”
“Huh?” Robert’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, you weren’t here the whole time?”
“Reckon you never heard tell,” Bob said, and described the trip up into Canada – leaving out the fact that he had been prompted by Isis kicking him out. Bob figured the boy didn’t need to know that about his mother, not now, not with her freshly dead and the shock still new in their hearts, blossoming like a black flower.
“Before all that,” Bob explained, “I wasn’t a young man, but, well, I wasn’t a serious man. Figured four years of war and ten years of Egypt would have burned that young man’s foolishness right out of me, wouldn’t you? But maybe I just needed that last little shove. Anyway, I come south out of Canada with no treasure except what I’d learned about myself by almost freezing to death. I was a better man after that, son, and that’s a fact.”
Robert nodded. He’d seen his own share of death and horror in the trenches, Over There. The boy carried a scar on his shoulder from a shell fragment. He knew about mud and blood and lice and rats, about artillery and machine guns and gas. He hadn’t told his father about those things. He didn’t have to. He knew his father understood.
Then Robert’s wife came in from the kitchen. Betty Allen was a petite, vivacious girl with a head full of blonde curls. Bob approved of her, and Isis had, too. After her poured in the grandchildren, three boys and two girls, aged fifteen to four. Bob managed a smile for the little ones. He had the strength for that.
The funeral was the next day. Bob stood there in a black suit smelling of mothballs, not listening to the droning of the Carson City preacher Robert had fetched out. I’ll see you soon enough, Isis, he thought. What the hell, maybe I’ll see that bastard Sam Evans up there, too. Not sure if I’ll shake his hand or bust his nose. Don’t suppose God cottons to fighting on the streets of Glory, so…
He looked at the closed coffin. Isis had long since insisted that there would be no viewings. “I want my family to remember me,” she said, “not some waxworks figure in a pine box.” She was right.
Isis, he thought. There was something magical about you. About us. Hell with Canada – if I’d have gone back to Cairo, sooner or later, I’d have crawled on my hands and knees through busted glass to get back to you.
Reckon you know that, don’t you?
You drove me a little bit crazy at times. Suppose I did the same to you. But that’s life, and we had a hell of a good one, after all. Lord, I remember the day we wed. That cold rain, that young preacher just out of seminary – he just said the words for you here, just now. He’s an old man now, just like I’m an old man now, but if I had the chance, I’d give everything I own in the world just to see you now, like you were on that day, in that blue dress, smiling me even with that cold rain coming down.
I’ll see you soon, Isis, he thought. He stepped forward, laid a hand on the pine box. I’ll see you soon.
***
Isis oh Isis you’re a mystical child.
What drives me to you is what drives me insane.
I still can remember the way that you smiled.
On the fifth day of May in the drizzling rain.
T
That was awesome, I cried, great work Animal
+1 Great story
+2
Nice wrap up. Thanks for sharing, Animal.
Hitting pretty close to home, Animal. Makes a feller think…
Thanks, we’ll always have our memories…
Mammary Monday conquers!
https://archive.li/hv5w7
OT but definitely worth a read:
https://mises.org/library/why-intellectuals-still-support-socialism
“Hayek argues that exceptionally intelligent people who favor the market tend to find opportunities for professional and financial success outside the Academy (i.e., in the business or professional world).”
Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach…
Private sector expects results… ?
Results? What are those?
1 – It should absolutely NOT be a surprise.
2 – TMITE because of what I bolded; they see themselves as “opinion changers,” not “fact reporters.” IOW, they’re all fucking propagandists at heart, a multitude of lazy little Goebbels. It’s why they all repeat the same lies, crib stories, and eat from the same trough. They’re hacks.
15 years ago and still waiting for Godot.
I’ve always thought academics support socialism because in their mind, if you gather enough smart people together, you can come up with a solution that is best for everyone.
I’ve always thought academics support socialism because in their mind, if you gather enough smart people together, you can come up with a solution that
is best for everyone.will allow them to remain in power the longest.At least my view on it.
Well, they are the smart ones so of course they would be the ones making the decisions.
They should consider igniting a huge race/class war and then going and hiding in a cave out in the desert until the killing stops. Then, they can emerge from the cave and we’ll put them in charge of everything because we’ll be too stupid to do it ourselves.
Arrogance and Stupidity
While I’m sure that there are those that are in it for the power alone, I think many just believe that they can control the economy and that they know what is best. No matter how many times the “experts” are proven wrong.
Certainly that is part of it. This seems like a good place to drop this gem.
“majority of economists published in New York Times editorial section” they mean
Absolutely did not disappoint, Animal!
Needs to be bound up and sold at large.
Thank you for that.
Great story. Thanks Animal!
Hey Yusef, we went to Mt. Baldy yesterday. Had a great time and got a pretty good story out of it.
Ugh, I’ve skied Baldy…well, more like avoided rocks while someone having control of my movement as gravity assisted me down slope.
No, no. We skated Mt. Baldy. The full pipe.
Pipeline? That place still exists? Or something else?
Yeah, it still exists and is used regularly. There was a group of pros filming when we got there. The star kid took his board apart and gave the deck to my kid when they were done. It was totally cool.
Awesome. I was a wee pup getting dragged out there with my older brother. What a culture it was.
I looked up the kid who gave my son his deck. Turn’s out he got his start by being brought out there with his dad. He was moved by me bringing my son. Totally cool.
Seriously awesome experience for you and your son. I was originally thinking the old skate park in Upland “Pipeline” where Vallely, Hawk, Natas and others used to frequent.
Yeah, I understand the OG pipeline park was bulldozed around ’89. There’s a newer, smaller one that’s still there, but it doesn’t involve trespassing and hopping fences, so my kid wanted to go to the actual Baldy pipe. It was a great day, except for the hike out almost killed me. Very steep hill with loose gravel and deep ruts. Carrying the backpack, both boards and the new deck for me, because my kid wiped out and scraped himself pretty good.
My age is showing…I know what you speak of. Haven’t heard anyone mention that in decades.
Yeah, I wanted to tell Yusef, because I think Steve Alba was with the group of pros.
Hopefully Yusef drops by to hear this. I probably snaked a run or two from him back in the day as a toe-headed 7 year old. 🙂
Sorry, but I’d rather see Jessica Alba. 😉
I think they’re related somehow.
Yup.
She grew up in Claremont Cali and I went to the beach with her and a bunch of friends a few times (through a friend that was trying to get her mother into church) but I was too naive to notice her and probably no where near in her league.
I hope y’all are having a good day off. Of course being the nut that I am, I had to do some work.
EF and I made a new Midwest Mysteries video, this time about a 1970s serial killer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwdr0wIByoE
Also I recommend a new strain of weed that I tried: Apollo 13. It’s very much a cerebral positive mental energy kind of buzz. More of a day smoker than a midnight toker.
https://www.leafly.com/strains/apollo-13
Thanks for the herb recommendation, LH. I’m on the wagon right now, but I’m a fan of the ‘heady’ sativas. Kush – and all indicas, really – are just “sleepy weed” for me.
I find durban poison to be a good “day weed,” but YMMV.
I used to think that Indicas were the weed for me – given my day-to-day anxiety. But I’m with you – too sleepy but they don’t help me sleep either!
Ozy thanks for the name of the book. In the cart to order after pay day!
It’s amazing how many serial killers were floating around back in the 70’s-80’s. There’s a never ending list of them just around southern California. It’s a miracle any of us survived, with all the drugs and hitchhiking and what not.
Great stuff, Animal – bravo
I was expecting some sort of ominous ending.
I was wrong.
I like this ending.
Animal is no SugarFree, and we can all be thankful for that.
Be there no beast so fierce but knows no touch of pity?
But SugarFree knows none, and therefore is no beast.
Excellent work, and so sincere. Something a little atypical for this place.
Installed 100′ of welded wire fencing. If I had to do it all over again, I’d’ve put the posts 6′ apart. Hopefully this will work, otherwise I’ll have to install some reinforcing posts. I’m not worried about the other sides, but this one has lots of grade changes and trees.
Ah, New York Times, so educated. So informative.
The upselling game of gun retailers has been on point selling the everything package to newbs ?
Can you even buy new rifles or pistols that cost less than $400?
Used to when there was a slump pre covid. I picked up a Walther PPS for just over $300, after rebate.
Still can get low end stuff for under $400.
Not here. Buckmarks and Shields are over $400.
This software push has been running for 4 hours. I was already warned it would be a 7-8 hr push but man, does it make me nervous that the engineers didn’t at least provide some feedback that things are still running.
Speaking of, when I came back from my ride, it took several tries to bring the site here up.
I had the same problem. Or at least, logging in.
“For all his sophisticated wit and parade of scholarly erudition—enlivened by lovingly detailed anecdotes—John Kenneth Galbraith is fundamentally as anti-intellectual as any ungrammatical Archie Bunker. From his earlier books on “countervailing power” and “affluence” to his present Money, Galbraith argues by assertion, insinuation, and elegant cheap shots at those who disagree with him. It may be good entertainment, but show business is not economics.”
Thomas Sowell, review of Money, by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1975
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/thomas-sowell-2/money-by-john-kenneth-galbraith/
The pup has got some skills, but awareness is not among them. Over the past few hours, she’s located and dug out four chipmunk nests. In every case, the chipmunks made their escape while she was digging completely without her noticing. Hell of a digger tho.
Perhaps she’s just interested in the digging portion of the program, not the crunchy part.
I loved it!
Thanks for the series Animal. Loved them all!
Wow.
Sorry for just getting to it, but that was absolutely perfect.